Guam News - Guam News

Guam - Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo has joined Carl Gutierez in his quest to have an investigation launched into the handling of the 2010 election. But the Calvo administration is calling this a waste of time saying there are more important things to worry about like the island's economy.

On Tuesday night the Democratic Party of Guam held a meeting in which both party chairman former Governor Carl Gutierrez and Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo were in attendance. Democratic Party Executive Director Carlo Branch says that at this meeting Congresswoman Bordallo was agreed to follow up on election 2010 complaints that individuals in the party filed with the U.S. attorney and the Department of Justice. "What we agreed to with everybody present is that she will file an inquiry with the U.S. attorney and the Department of Justice to get these complaints finally reviewed,” explained Branch.

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Governor Eddie Calvo's director of communications Troy Torres says it doesn't matter who the Democrats call to have the complaints reviewed. "Call anybody you want call the President call the United Nations,” adding “if you want you can go ahead and call ghost busters if you want to do an investigation you know maybe that could bring back the voices of the dead people who voted in 1998."

 Branch replied saying, "If anyone knows in which closet the Calvo-Tenorio ghosts are hidden Troy Torres is probably the best person to ask." Branch says that the push for an override of the election reform bill and the push now to have an investigation conducted on the 2010 election is nothing more than a push for the rights of voters to have a free and fair election. "I find it disturbing that an administration that claims to be as patriotic as this is now saying all of a sudden that it will not or it does not want the votes of servicemen in Afghanistan and the horn of Africa and Iraq to be counted,” said Branch adding, "What we are asking to be counted is ballots which have never been counted before ballots from armed servicemen that were counted in the congressional race but not in the local race so how is it that the republican administration is saying go off and die for our country but we won't count your vote in a local race."

 Torres on the other hand says it's nothing more than a push to change the rules of the game after the game is over. Torres said, "What they're not telling you about is a section right under neath the audit provision it's called section 118.” "There's a deadline for the Guam Election Commission to receive absentee ballots the deadline came and went in November of 2010 I believe,” said Torres adding, "What this section does is it retroactively 18 months after the election is done move the deadline for the filing of the absentee ballot it moves it so that those absentee ballots will count where in the world of democracy does that happen? I don't understand how you can go back 18 months to an election that was already done where there were rules and change the rules to try and affect the outcome of an election that's wrong."

 Lawmakers were supposed to be in session today discussing the override of bill 413 however session has been rescheduled to the end of April at the request of several senators because two senators are off-island.